Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi 6-Year Plan Has 12 EVs, 40 Autonomous Vehicles

The Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance announced a six-year plan, called Alliance 2022, setting a new target to double savings through synergies and common platforms for vehicles ranging from pure-electrics to autonomous drives. The Alliance forecasts annual sales exceeding 14 million units by 2022, adding about 30 percent to 2016 totals. Nine million of those units will be based on the same platform (versus 2 million now), the Alliance says, most of which will be shared EV platforms.

Twelve new zero-emissions vehicles will be launched by 2022, said Carlos Ghosn, CEO of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance. During that same time, 40 vehicles with varied levels of autonomy will also be introduced across the nameplates. Operating a robo-vehicle ride-hailing service is part of those plans, the CEO said.

This year, Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors became the world’s largest automotive group by sales volume. In the first half of 2017, volumes increased by seven percent year-on-year to 5.27 million units, while aggregate sales of electric vehicles reached a combined total of more than 500,000 units.

The increased synergy target of €10 billion by the end of the plan follows a 16% rise in synergies in 2016 to €5 billion. The doubling of synergies will be achieved partially by contributions from Mitsubishi Motors, specifically through deeper localization, joint plant utilization, common vehicle platforms, and an expanded presence in mature and emerging markets.

To expand the electric vehicle dominance that Renault-Nissan shared, the inclusion of Mitsubishi and more markets will mean upgrading segment offerings for EVs from the Alliance. A new family of EV motor and batteries are expected to be introduced in 2020 and shared across the three Alliance members. By 2022, that will result in 12 new purely electric vehicles across the Alliance’s brands. Including some with a range of 373 miles or more and a 30 percent decrease in battery costs.

The Alliance will also aggressively push the plug-in hybrid platform developed by Mitsubishi across its group as a common PHEV solution by 2022. The group is also targeting a doubling of charging amount in time, from 15 minutes equaling 56 miles to 143 miles. Optimized, flat packaging of battery cells will be used to improve interior space and styling flexibility.

For autonomous-drive cars, there are several stages with goals to be met.

Test programs are underway in different regions of the world as part of the development of autonomous technologies, which will enable member companies to offer advanced AD functionality for mainstream, mass-market vehicles. The timetable for AD deployment will include:

  • 2018: Highly autonomous drive vehicle for use on highways – with a human driver’s continuous monitoring of the environment.
  • 2020: Highly autonomous drive vehicle for use in cities – with a human driver’s continuous monitoring of the environment.
  • 2020: Highly autonomous drive vehicle for use on highways – with occasional human driver intervention.
  • 2022: First fully autonomous drive vehicle – with no human driver intervention necessary.